Absorbent garments such as disposable diapers, training pants, adult incontinent garments, and the like, are well known. Such absorbent garments employ an absorbent body between an outer cover and a bodyside liner. In order to improve the ability of absorbent garments to absorb and reduce leakage of discharged body wastes, it has become common to include elastic waistbands and leg cuffs on such garments. Some conventional absorbent garments have also included elastic barrier flaps at the leg sections to further reduce leakage.
Conventional absorbent garments that include containment flaps have not been completely satisfactory. Conventional flaps in such garments include a single flap at each side of the garment. Each single flap includes a proximal edge attached to the garment and an elasticized distal edge opposite the proximal edge. The single containment flap is attached to the garment such that the distal edge of the containment flap is maintained in a generally upright position to contact the body of a wearer, thereby providing a seal that attempts to prevent the flow of bodily exudate. However, a single containment flap often fails to provide an adequate seal between the distal edge of the flap and the wearer's body. The lack of an adequate seal results in leakage of exudates and, in particular, runny fecal matter. Moreover, the single containment flap often fails and is particularly ineffective against forceful and repetitive expelling of exudates. The leakage of exudates past the containment flap results in soiling the clothing, bedding, and person. Obviously, this is undesirable.
Examples of containment flaps are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,116 (hereby incorporated by reference) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,158 (hereby incorporated by reference). Garments having two containment flaps on each side of the garment are also known. For example, some garments have an inner pair of containment flaps and an outer pair of containment flaps with the inner flaps positioned closer to the center of the garment than the outer flaps. Some garments have elastic members along the distal edge of a containment flap to provide a closer fit to the wearer. However, conventional elastic members are provided at such a high elastic tension or high elongation that the wearer's skin is irritated or marked by the flap/elastic member assembly.
One multiple flap construction is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,653. This patent generally describes a disposable garment for catching body fluids or excretions and particularly to a garment provided with a plurality of flaps extending longitudinally side-by-side along laterally opposite sides of the garment and normally biased by their own elastic shrinking potential to turn up.
WO 96/26698, which corresponds to U.S. application Ser. No. 08/396,949, describes a disposable absorbent article such as a diaper. The diaper has dual upstanding inner and outer barrier leg cuffs, and preferably gasket cuffs. The inner barrier leg cuffs are liquid pervious, while the outer barrier leg cuffs are liquid impermeable. The inner barrier leg cuffs are preferably spaced apart from one another sufficient to allow urine and fecal material to be deposited therebetween. Each outer barrier leg cuff is preferably spaced properly from the inner barrier leg cuff so as to allow the leg cuffs to function independently, yet maintain a proper target area for the deposition of urine and fecal material.
Ovisan-Kimberly of Istanbul, Turkey, manufactures a diaper under the trade name PEDO DUO that has a dual flap construction including inner and outer containment flaps on each of the left and right sides of the diaper. As determined by an Elastic Tension Test described later herein, the outer containment flap of the Ovisan-Kimberly diaper has an elastic tension which is at least fifteen percent greater than the elastic tension in the inner containment flap. The height of each inner containment flap, as measured from the liner to the distal edge of the flap at the longitudinal center thereof is approximately 25 mm. The height of each outer containment flap is approximately 29 mm and is in any event at least about fifteen percent greater than the height of the inner flaps. The elasticized lengths of the inner and outer containment flaps of the PEDO DUO diaper are substantially equal and are approximately 80 percent of the overall length of the diaper.
Conventional absorbent garments with containment flaps at the leg openings have not been completely satisfactory. Accordingly, a need remains to improve containment at the leg openings of absorbent garments.